Pay-per-click advertising (also referred to as PPC advertising) is a notable customer acquisition strategy for both B2C and B2B market sectors. However, the difficulty in implementing such a strategy differs significantly from one case to another – it is a common strategy in the B2C market and is relatively easy to implement, yet the complexity of the same strategy for B2B clients is significantly higher.
At the same time, it is not uncommon for B2B customer journeys to contain search engine usage in a certain way, which drastically increases the efficiency of PPC advertising for lead generation, making it one of the most useful marketing strategies to begin with.
Like any other marketing strategy in this market, implementing PPC B2B lead generation can be a challenging process that is comprised of multiple steps. The first step would be to define the budget and the target platforms that you are going to use for this strategy.
Both LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads (with YouTube) are recommendations that most people don’t need to have any explanation for. Microsoft Ads is also a viable alternative in some cases, but it also has a number of issues that might prevent your PPC strategy from succeeding. Other potential advertisement avenues are Twitter (X) Ads, Quora Ads, and Reddit Ads, although neither of those would be as effective as the two options mentioned above.
As for the topic of budget allocation, it is a somewhat difficult task that is going to differ drastically depending on both the campaign goals and the total budget available.
Google Ads would be the primary platform if you need leads with high buying intent and would be fine with a high cost-per-lead. LinkedIn Ads are somewhat cheaper but are not converting into opportunities from the get-go, putting a lot more pressure on the lead nurturing process. Microsoft Ads should also be included, with about 10% of the total budget invested, to have a comparison for both the cost-per-lead and the number of leads found. The rest of the advertising platforms are often treated as experiments and thus are not worth more than 5% of the total budget each.
Most B2B customer journeys in the modern day are complicated and include multiple channels for potential interaction. Every single prospect comes in contact with either one or multiple marketing assets of yours in their buyer’s journey before being converted. As such, investing in different platforms and marketing channels to increase the number of touchpoints per prospect directly influences the number of converted customers and the general efficiency of a marketing campaign.
Of course, budgeting is only the beginning of an effective PPC B2B marketing campaign. There are multiple other steps and elements that have to be included to ensure the highest possible level of success for the campaign in question.
For example, something as seemingly simple as setting the correct objectives for a marketing campaign can have long-lasting consequences on its process. Every single campaign objective should be based on reasonable goals that can be achieved within your current environment instead of setting up some sort of unrealistic standard for yourself and your marketing efforts.
Another noteworthy step that should be done at the earliest convenience is keyword research. The nature of the B2B market also makes it slightly different from the same process for B2C customers. The business market favors long-tail keywords over short-tail ones to exclude consumer-related search queries to avoid potential overlap. Looking into keywords your competitors use is also a viable option, considering how easy it is with modern tools and services.
Precision is a very important factor in PPC B2B marketing. Knowing what specific user groups to target can mean the difference between a failed marketing campaign and a successful one. The most common examples of targeting areas are locations and demographics, but the targeting itself can be narrowed down, too, if there is a necessity for it.
For example, the total size of a B2B market makes it possible to create customer lists to note down who exactly would be able to receive the ads from your marketing campaign. Restricting the total topic range is another viable option to achieve more specific audience targeting – excluding topics such as games, gardening, sports, and anything else that is not related to your target audience.
Everything described above is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creating comprehensive PPC B2B marketing strategies. It can be a difficult task to deal with, especially for newcomers in the field. Luckily, there are plenty of options to outsource these efforts to someone who would be an international SEO expert to see a short-term result instead of experimenting by yourself or investing large amounts of money into your own in-house marketing team without any certainty in its efficiency down the line.